Weighing in at a hefty US$30, these are by far the cheapest active noise cancelling phones on the market, with or without a pedigree. They are of the canalphone types first popularized by the Sony MDR-EX70s and EX71s. Philips ups this by adding in an active noise cancelling circuitry unit. As you can see in the picture above, the microphones are on the side port of the drivers. The small breakout box does the NC magic and pipes the sound back to the drivers. The drivers use the “universal” gaskets used by Sony, Panasonic, Ultimate Ears, etc. Generally, the better gaskets from Ultimate Ears served me well with the Sony phones (EX90s), though with this particular set, they were more of a hinderance. The standard medium works well enough.

Ergonomics is rather interesting. It is of the Y-cord variety, though a rather new take on it: The breakout has single cord for the 3.5mm plug and single cord for each of the drivers. You can do cord management with a slider type thingy on the driver side of things. However, the cord to the 3.5mm jack is a bit short, and the cords to the driver too long. Other than that, the ergonomics on this is no better or no worse than other NC type buds. Thanks to the sliding mechanism (which is a piece of rubber, more or less), you can minimize microphonics a bit.

Now for the nitty gritty, the sound quality. You can do a lot worse for $30, and they include the venerable EX71s. The overall sound is balanced, though the NC adds background white noise, which is par for the course. The treble is a bit out of control (brighter than average, and very unrefined), while the bass is nice and tight, given the right seal. The vocals/mids don’t get too lost here, just being congenial with the bass and the trebles. Soundstaging could be much better. It’s too 2D-ish and is a bit claustrophobic at times, a little too intimate at others. It is still heaps better than the EX90s EX71s (Someone please slap me when I say something this stupid), probably slighlty worse than the Panasonic HJE50s, which are about the same price as these.

The SHN2500 advertises “70% less external noise.”  However, during the little amount of time I could bear to wear them, they didn’t reduce external noise at all.  The noise-canceling unit just smoked out room noise with a combination of its own white noise and a low hum in the range of 123 Hz.  Consequently, all your favorite albums now sound fuzzy.  There’s nothing like listening to Abbey Road with some nice white noise to fill in those awful gaps.

The other thing the noise replacement feature does is raise the volume.  Make sure you have your device’s volume set down low before engaging the noise replacement.

If nothing else about the SHN2500 had turned me off, it feels as though someone just punched me in the ears.  To be fair, I’m often told I have oddly-shaped ear canals, and in-ears never really rest comfortably in them.  However, I don’t recall throbbing pain after using other in-ears.  I’d like to think I’m old enough to follow directions, so I have no explanation other than poor design for these painful things.